Manufacturing Q&A: with Myerson Solicitors and Envirocap

In an evolving manufacturing landscape, where technology and sustainability converge to shape the future, companies are faced with both challenges and opportunities.

In this exclusive Q&A session, Myerson Solicitors sit down with the team at Enviro-Cap Ltd, a key player in the recyclable metal caps and containers manufacturing sector.

Despite being deeply rooted in traditional machinery and methods, Enviro-Cap Ltd is navigating the shifting terrain, investing in machinery, and aligning with market demand for customised products.

From exploring the potential of Generative AI and the journey towards sustainability, this interview offers a comprehensive look into the dynamic world of manufacturing.

As Mark Blaney, CEO of Enviro-Cap Ltd, shares his perspective on the industry's current state and its foreseeable future, the conversation reveals insights, strategies, and forward-thinking approaches that manufacturers worldwide can take inspiration from.

What is making all the news currently is Generative AI, which we could see having creative uses in the generation of marketing material, as well as in the design and visualisation of products.

Meanwhile, AI, more generally in terms of expert systems, such as fault detection, will be increasingly used to drive automation. 

However, Generative AI isn't creative as such, so it will depend on the material it is trained on. 

So, for real creativity in developing new products and applications, which is where we are focused in our drive to develop sustainable substitutes for plastic caps and closures, we think you need the lateral thinking and imagination that will be difficult to produce with AI.

Our key inputs are what would be seen as commodity products, such as sheet aluminium and tinplate, but these need to be manufactured to particular specifications and finished with printing and coating to a high standard, both of which severely limit the range of suppliers we can use.

As a result, we have to work very closely with our supply chain to get the quality of input we need. 

Meanwhile, we face continuous end-user pressure on pricing, often based on the assumption that our inputs are simply commodity products, so we have an ongoing education and negotiation process with customers.

The three things we would point to are:

• Integration of supply chains, a focus on working with our suppliers to ensure product and service quality. 
• An emphasis on creating differentiation through, for example, value-added design capability or stock holding to service customers (balanced against the business's own working capital management needs). 
• A strong focus on sustainability of design and products to meet consumer demands and increasingly the resultant retailer criteria for product selection.

As we've seen in recent years, the downside of globalised supply chains is their susceptibility to major shocks, so we are seeing a strategic move in our customer base to on or nearshoring to reduce their reliance on remote logistics, which can get overstretched.  

We believe innovation is the key to our future, so we are continuously looking at packaging issues, particularly areas where there is currently only a plastic solution available, to see how we can produce a competitive and environmentally friendly substitute.

So, always looking at what customers want or may need, rather than what the business currently does, would be our key bit of advice.